Medicare Cutbacks

Medicare Cutbacks

Politicians, hospital administrators, doctors, and union leaders across the country are scrambling to reverse Medicare policy that has cut off, and will continue to cut off, billions of dollars from the health care industry and force cutbacks in critical medical services.

The combination of rising cost in the health care industry and the diminishing Medicare payments are predicted to result in devastating effects to many aspects of the sector. Physicians, treatment facilities, medical training institutions, as well as beneficiaries are all vulnerable to the adverse effects of Medicare cutbacks.

Nationwide, hospitals will lose approximately $1.6 billion annually once new Medicare cuts go into place on October 1, 2002. The cutbacks contained in the fiscal year 2003 budget will present a substantial challenge in the days lying ahead for the programs 550,000 participating physicians and its 39 million beneficiaries (Haugh, 2002). In the resent days of staffing crisis's, liability insurance price hikes, and the overall elevating cost of providing healthcare, the Medicare cutbacks could not have come at a more inconvenient time for health care officials. Medicare payment reductions have become the added fuel in the industries financial crisis fire.

I. Introduction

A. What the projected cutbacks are.

B. What prompted the cutbacks?

1. Balanced Budget Act of 1997

C. Who will be effected by the cutbacks?

II. Impact on Physicians and private practice

A. Reimbursement rate deduction

B. Medicare participation decline

1. 17 percent of family physician have stopped taking new Medicare patients (Inglehart, 2002).

III. Impact on Hospitals

A. Disproportional-share hospital payment reduction

B. Reimbursement rate reduction

IV. Impact on training hospitals

A. Indirect medical education payment adjustments

B. Importance of training facility funding

V. Impact on beneficiaries

A. Good v. Bad

1. More funds available for new programs such as drug benefits.

2. Limited access to care.

3. Limited choices.

VI. Conclusion

References

Association of American Medical Colleges. (2002, May 15).

Health care leaders urge congress to stop medicare cuts to teaching hospitals. Retrieved September 10, 2002, from http://www.aamc.org/newsroom/Pressrel/